"Does it matter to you casuals if we hardcores get fluid covenants?" Yes, here's why.

[Katchii]

Honestly this mentality, and I honestly do not mean to offend, shows little to no understanding of how this game works.

No, it seems you're the one who is seemingly having trouble detaching what the GAME requires vs what PLAYERS are requiring.

I acknowledge that players ask for this, and they have a right to do so. I'm simply saying the GAME does not require it. As the content CAN be cleared by sub optimal builds or specs.

100% when players find out what is ideal for XYZ that will become all that is acceptable. Try to get into a high key as let's say a kyrian paladin? Why on earth would we take you over a venthyr paladin get good. Trying to get into raid teams with the wrong covenant people will absolutely decline you based on your covenant.

Thank you for proving the point that it's YOU THE PLAYER that is requiring it.

High Mythic keys CAN be cleared with non-optimal specs, when played by good players, because the player can deal with the mechanics and pull their weight. The issue is some players seem to be of this mind set that if a player is doing ~5% less than the optimal, then they're not pulling their weight...which is bonkers. Especially when the spread across different classes is around the same, if not greater and even the performance spread across a given spec/build can be even bigger than that depending on the player behind the keyboard.

No it's not ideal. It's not good. But that's the game the players have built and that's exactly what's going to happen. You already have people requiring AOTC for normal runs (why anyone wouldn't have aotc is beyond me), 2000 IO for a +10. This game has been built on and encourages elitism. Throwing a wrench into it this late in the game is just going to piss everyone off.

Again, thank you for acknowledging that it's the PLAYER that is enforcing these "requirements." The GAME does not have these requirements, it's players that are close minded, or elitist, or whatever other word you want to apply to it that have this weird mentality that a difference of a few percentage points makes one build the best and the rest are trash.

[Tortuga234]

Apparently you do...as posters in this thread repeatedly say you don't need to be optimal if you're not a top 100 raider :/

Which is so disappointing to hear.

They fail to understand the truth few are willing to acknowledge. WoW is only "successful" (not entirely drown to be more precise) only because at some point long ago it transformed into a session game akin to LoL and DotA and so on. It is not an MMORPG any more. It's a quickmatch game. Arena, bg, m+, raids - all of this is quickmatch sessions where there the goal is clear and achievable from the start: WIN. And to WIN you will want to pick the best tools from every that is available.
It is sad, but it's the reality of modern WoW. Enrage timers, m+ timers, DPS race bosses - Blizzard did this to the game by introducing things like these, not the "elitist: players. Noone would care whether they bring X or Z if such things did not apply pressure.

[Katchii]

Apparently you do...as posters in this thread repeatedly say you don't need to be optimal if you're not a top 100 raider :/

Which is so disappointing to hear.

But you DON'T.....the vast majority of content can be cleared by non-optimal specs and players. The only aspect of the game where playing 100% optimally is absolutely required are the bleeding edge progression.

Everywhere else, it is absolutely not required. It's encouraged, as it should be because it IS optimal, but it's absolutely NOT required.

[Tortuga234]

High Mythic keys CAN be cleared with non-optimal specs, when played by good players, because the player can deal with the mechanics and pull their weight.

Nah, dude. Shamans get one-shotted in anything above 24-25+ when there's unavoidable damage.

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Everywhere else, it is absolutely not required. It's encouraged, as it should be because it IS optimal, but it's absolutely NOT required.

Did you see mythic Uunat? Tell me how that did not require 10 warlocks and shadow priests and could be cleared with random enhancement, outlaw, survival, retribution, and other weak speccs?

[Katchii]

Nah, dude. Shamans get one-shotted in anything above 24-25+ when there's unavoidable damage.

Only shamans? No other classes? ALL shamans? or is it just certain specs/ builds?

Regardless, if it's ONLY in 24+ and higher keys, it seems like a non-issue considering no one is ever required (or even encouraged, really) to do keys that high. This falls in the same thing as bleeding edge progression IMO, where people doing keys that high are in such a small minority as to make it a statistical outlier and should therefore not really have time spent balancing around.

- - - Updated - - -

Did you see mythic Uunat? Tell me how that did not require 10 warlocks and shadow priests and could be cleared with random enhancement, outlaw, survival, retribution, and other weak speccs?

At what point in time?

Because Blizzard acknowledged that the fight was overtuned and needed adjustments and applied hotfixes to it.

Needing specific compositions to clear fights that aren't tuned correctly don't really count in this regard because the fight itself isn't balanced correctly.

[Tortuga234]

Only shamans? No other classes? ALL shamans? or is it just certain specs/ builds?

Regardless, if it's ONLY in 24+ and higher keys, it seems like a non-issue considering no one is ever required (or even encouraged, really) to do keys that high. This falls in the same thing as bleeding edge progression IMO, where people doing keys that high are in such a small minority as to make it a statistical outlier and should therefore not really have time spent balancing around.

- - - Updated - - -



At what point in time?

Because Blizzard acknowledged that the fight was overtuned and needed adjustments and applied hotfixes to it.

Needing specific compositions to clear fights that aren't tuned correctly don't really count in this regard because the fight itself isn't balanced correctly.

I talk about shamans from experience. Can't talk about other classes without it. And sorry but who are you to decide what is bleeding edge and what is not? I consider 20-23 keys casual, for instance. And that is not a minority, go to raider.io and see the sheer amount of high score healer druids at the top. Literally thousands of them. Next thing you'll say "why do we have to listen to black people issues, they are ONLY a minority, non-issue whatsoever"? Ridiculous.
Regarding compositions - oh come on, really? Never there has been a boss where ranged is preferred over melee and it was instantly hotfixed to be the opposite? C'mon this is not even an argument. You absolutely are required to bring less melee to Ilgynoth, you were absolutely required to have less melee on Argus, and it stayed that way.

[gd8]

I'm pretty casual at this point and I still don't want to have to choose a covenant for the best abilities, I'd rather they just be entirely cosmetic honestly.

[Fkiolaris]

I'm pretty casual at this point and I still don't want to have to choose a covenant for the best abilities, I'd rather they just be entirely cosmetic honestly.

You are not the only one mate, but didn't you hear? You can do all the content you want in a suboptimal setup, you just need to "get good" and improve your performance. Having fun in a game be damned and defined by others for you.

[Katchii]

I talk about shamans from experience. Can't talk about other classes without it. And sorry but who are you to decide what is bleeding edge and what is not? I consider 20-23 keys casual, for instance. And that is not a minority, go to raider.io and see the sheer amount of high score healer druids at the top. Literally thousands of them. Next thing you'll say "why do we have to listen to black people issues, they are ONLY a minority, non-issue whatsoever"? Ridiculous.

First, you said 24+ not 20-23.

Second, this is a game and not even remotely close to real life issues, so I have no idea why you think there's even a correlation.

Thousands of players is still a small (very small) minority in a game with millions of players. My point is not that they don't matter, it's that the game shouldn't cater to or balance around (ie spend significant time) them at the expense or enjoyment of the rest of the vast population. As a business, that makes absolutely zero sense.

Regarding compositions - oh come on, really? Never there has been a boss where ranged is preferred over melee and it was instantly hotfixed to be the opposite? C'mon this is not even an argument. You absolutely are required to bring less melee to Ilgynoth, you were absolutely required to have less melee on Argus, and it stayed that way.

Melee has always had issues in boss fights compared to ranged, generally. The discussion is not melee vs ranged. It's more granular, ie BM Hunter with Talent A vs BM Hunter with Talent B....where Talent A is optimal and Talent B is not. The discussion is around how there seems to be a mentality that because Talent A is optimal that Talent B is trash and players that choose Talent B are therefore also trash and should be excluded from groups.

[Gigantique]

The elephant in the room is and will always be PvP in this scenario though. While I might be inclined to sacrifice say my single-target DPS for more AoE since I do M+ more than raids these days, and a slight disadvantage in either only affects your numbers to a small degree, PvP is a whole other ballpark. My hunter picking the «wrong» covenant will most likely be a huge factor in determining if an arena fight is a win or a loss, since some of them have huge impacts. Take the aoe that lets you shoot through walls for example. Can you imagine how shit it will feel if I picked any other covenant for any other reason and then die to a hunter at the same gear and skill level just because I liked Night Fae and didn’t know their covenant ability is hot garbage?

I’m a sucker for transmog, and I would sacrifice my numbers on the DPS metres easily for the optimal covenant looks-wise (why those have to be in conflict for the first time since cataclysm is beyond me though), but the nature of PvP means I don’t really have a meaningful choice. Because it’s not just numbers in that regard, it’s the equivalent of wiping or not wiping in a pve scenario.

So therefore every toon I have any interest in doing PvP on is shoehorned into the optimal PvP covenant, no matter what I would prefer.

[Tortuga234]

First, you said 24+ not 20-23.

Second, this is a game and not even remotely close to real life issues, so I have no idea why you think there's even a correlation.

Thousands of players is still a small (very small) minority in a game with millions of players. My point is not that they don't matter, it's that the game shouldn't cater to or balance around (ie spend significant time) them at the expense or enjoyment of the rest of the vast population. As a business, that makes absolutely zero sense.



Melee has always had issues in boss fights compared to ranged, generally. The discussion is not melee vs ranged. It's more granular, ie BM Hunter with Talent A vs BM Hunter with Talent B....where Talent A is optimal and Talent B is not. The discussion is around how there seems to be a mentality that because Talent A is optimal that Talent B is trash and players that choose Talent B are therefore also trash and should be excluded from groups.

Uh, yes 24+ is a breaking point? Everything below is casual to me - unavoidable damage one-shots my Shaman, what is there hard to understand?


And, BM hunter with talent B absolutely is trash for picking a sub-optimal talent. Because by picking talent B the hunter puts more weight on other people's shoulders or (which is more often the case) does not understand how that particular encounter works. And clearly you have never wiped on mythic raid bosses where people with low DPS were switched for other classes leading to a successful kill.

[Katchii]

Uh, yes 24+ is a breaking point? Everything below is casual to me - unavoidable damage one-shots my Shaman, what is there hard to understand?

And, BM hunter with talent B absolutely is trash for picking a sub-optimal talent. Because by picking talent B the hunter puts more weight on other people's shoulders or (which is more often the case) does not understand how that particular encounter works. And clearly you have never wiped on mythic raid bosses where people with low DPS were switched for other classes leading to a successful kill.

sub-optimal =/= trash, especially if the difference is small. The performance variance seen from players playing the optimal spec/build is greater than the typical difference between the optimal and sub-optimal talent choice.

If the differences were significant, or at least more significant than the variance in performance across players in the same spec, I'd 100% agree with the mentality, but it's typically just not true

Your posts makes me believe you arent doing more difficult content than LFR.

Do you just argue against the OP's narrative for the sake of arguing?

I'm only arguing that the mentality that a "sub optimal" choice that provides a difference of up to maybe 5% is considered trash, is just not true or consistent with how performance actually ends up in real world scenarios.

Every site I've ever seen that shows DPS rankings even has a disclaimer similar to this, from https://www.wowmeta.com/bfa/dps-rankings;

"Are lower-ranked classes unviable?

Not at all. These rankings are meant to show the general trends but in actual in-game scenarios many other factors may chime in and the lowest-ranked class/spec may end up being Top #1 DPS in raid/group and vice versa."

So even the "experts" who create and maintain these sites don't subscribe to this attitude that the "sub-optimal" choice is trash and should be shunned from all groups.

To be clear, at no point am I advocating for people to NOT be optimal, I'm simply saying players that don't choose the optimal talent aren't trash and shouldn't be shunned from doing the content they're capable of clearing.

[kaminaris]

Your posts makes me believe you arent doing more difficult content than LFR.

Do you just argue against the OP's narrative for the sake of arguing?

That is funny how people accuse of this nonsense. So riddle me this:
There are people who cleared last boss mythic with garbo specs faster than you ever came to progress it.
There are people who cleared M+ bleeding edge keys with garbo specs to the levels you won't ever reach.

[Omedon]

As of today, anyone who leaves the Ardenweald covenant is officially a villain. The Ardenweald cinematic paints how seriously we are *meant* to take these oaths in RP. Of course they aren't going to be loosened up for at least a year if not longer.

[keldarepewpew]

Versions of the covenant debate always seem to come down to this point: "Since you're so casual, what does it matter if we who play for keeps push for the ability to swap covenants? Stay out of the discussion if you don't do X high end content!"

Staying out of the discussion is entirely the point of why players like me care. An approachable on-ramp to later game ambition is at the core of why covenants are being presented as intentionally diverse and simultaneously rigid. The entire intent to let new blood try M+ or raiding difficulties beyond LFR (which, once again are more optional than ever and we literally and intentionally have nothing to threaten each other with in regards to content access so long as the main thoroughfare of queuable difficulties include every raid and dungeon), giving people the option, whether it be with the intended established community or the odd available (but less intended) PUG is at the core of why covenants are being presented this way.

"Don't be new on other people's time" is a motto that has grown into WoW as time efficiency rears its ugly head as a key metric in using pick up groups to run PVE team content such as M+ and raids above LFR. The more gears and wheels that will freely rotate into a position that could be optimal or less optimal, the harder "being new" is, and in a situation where WoW does its best to protect us from the worst of each other in as much content as possible (which arguably won't and can't include premade team content, but they're allowed to try), the less approachable that later game content is. This is an important factor.

"But people can just look it up the right configuration," you might say. News flash: that's an answer ignorant to the fact that not everyone will do that, will want to do that, or will think that should be necessary in a game of this caliber. "Well then they aren't entitled to membership in my group and I am free to decline them," you might say... and you wouldn't be wrong, but rigid covenants are exactly the kind of front that WoW can potentially address, on their game's level, the whole "why am I being declined" issue.

I've said before that they will never fully address such a community issue as FOTM and meta, but this might be one of the ways they can actually do that: by cutting down on easily changeable variables and, in a world where the great vault is ticking and you have X number of M+ runs that your OCD is wrongly forcing you to do (another thing that isn't Blizzard's responsibility to work around), making it harder to actually form the perfect group might, in theory, have you take that less meta-class newer player of the "right" covenant into your group just to get it done and over with.

At the end of the day, no, these headaches won't be mine, so long as I can see all the content and achieve my cosmetic goals in queueable or soloable content, I will continue to do what I've done for two expansions now: pretend M+ doesn't exist. The thing is... there is a part of me that might want to give M+ a try some day, and if that moment comes, I will appreciate if the approachability of "no one sane will be asking you to switch covenants" is built into the social compact of the game for reasonable, worthwhile players.

So yes, if you get what you want up there at the high end, the damage trickles down. It matters. There is another viable perspective, people are allowed (intended) to pick their covenant for concept and flavor, and it's blizzard's job to make each covenant "not wrong" for 99.9% of the players doing the vast majority of the content, and we have no reason yet to believe they haven't done that. Keep giving your feedback, and I will keep validating that people seeing covenants as an opportunity for character expression are not wrong.

Thank you for reading!

IF someone applies with a non BIS covenant im declining them instantly not gonna lie. The same way i decline any holy pala in arenas who decided to not go Ineffable. The simple thruth is every player is replacable just because you think it might be slightly harder to change your build because of the restrictions in place doesnt mean i cant just find someone else instead.

[Nzx]

??? Literally just switch covenants to the new best one. You weren't attached in the first place, since you picked it just because it was the optimal performance choice.

I mean, that's exactly the point, isn't it? What if you chose your covenant based on the holistic total of it's parts - you love the ember court, you don't really like Sinfall as a location, you're alright with Revendreth as a zone, and the ability is okay because it performs middle of the pack in all content. Next reset they nerf the rewards from ember court and nerf your ability by 50%. Now you have to decide whether an absolute dumpster ability is a good trade for the cosmetic shit that you like. Why are people being forced to choose between fun gameplay and aesthetics that they like? The true "RPG choice" here is choosing the location you want to afk in and the stories that your character partakes in, it shouldn't be whether or not your character is fun to play or not.

[Fatmorty]

CE raider and decent m+ pusher here. I think yall are blaming us cutting edge folk alot for shit that we dont do.. yeah we find the meta sure but do we make you use it? Nope. I myself dont play a meta spec and my keys group dont.. we have a dh tank a frost dk a spriest a pally and a bm and we have managed 23 keys just fine... am i going to decline you from a key?? Nope because i wont be playing with your bad ass play ever because im busy playing with a good group that doesnt need to use the meta to do shit.. do i want to be basically locked into a covenant? No because i want to try and use new things whenever the fuck i feel because i want to try shit without a 2 week lockout. Stop blaming good players for finding a meta and not being accepted to groups because most the time its because you are just bad or the people picking the group are bad and need every advantage possible

[LazuOG]

Why would someone who wants A \ B \ C done bother dragging someone weak through it when there's an option to take someone strong and increase your chances of doing said A \ B \ C?

It's good that X class with Y specc shines at A, I'll bring them to A. But why would I bring them to B when that clearly diminishes my chances at achieving success in B if they suck at it? We had a good time at A, all that, now make way for something that is good at B and so on.

Point is - you don't use an old rusty car that breaks every 10 min, or is not powerful enough to climb a slope if you 100% can afford a better more powerful car.

That's why people want to be good at everything. They want to experience everything the game has to offer e.g. they JUST WANT TO PLAY THE GAME and not be excluded from content for no fault of their own and purely due to Blizzard's inability to balance classes\speccs\systems and so on.

Beacons of reason like your argument give me the strength to sift through dozens more posts containing words like meaningful, min-max, identity, meta-slave etc.

Thank you for kindling my feeble hope in this community.

[Mayia]

Blizzard has been shown that the playerbase isnt always going to be working in its own best interest. If you remove all barriers for entry and all power based choices then they will just move to where everyone is.
Classes can also not all play the same or the entire point of them is lost, so if you make it too easy to swap then everyone will just pick whatever is best.

Blizzard has wanted diversity for years, and so has the playerbase, but blizzard making swapping easy has only made things worse, so now they are trying the opposite approach by making swapping difficult to try and make players comfortable with not always having the optimal choice at hand. You can still chase the latest trends, but Blizzard is now rewarding those who are willing to take a hit to optimal performance. And who knows, maybe the playerbase will realize that only a very, very small percentage of the players are actually able to play to the highest level anyways.

If you allow people to pick whatever power is best, combined with picking whatever appearance they want in different choices it doesn't matter.. everyone will pick whatever, stopping players from picking "the best spell" is silly it'll happen anyway this is a game where power is important, they cant balance the choice properly so why bother.
Its just another failing of Blizzard where they think they're grand systems will work and it'll ruin another expansion looked back on in 2 years time as "this could've been great BUT X/Y/Z system kept having to be updated and wasted so much time"

looks like your sig your going Night Fae, is that a choice for all characters you have? i wonder if you'd set a personal challenge for yourself and only pick night fae across all your characters for as long as you can stand, and put into your sig how long you managed to last.. it'd be interesting to see if you could go the entire expansion.

[LazuOG]

That's where the argument is flying off the handle. What I said was, your class won't be useless in that situation, they just might shine better in others. Just because a Resto shaman is better at AoE healing than Holy Paladin, doesn't mean the Holy Paladin is bad or can't AoE heal. They're just not as good in certain areas of healing. You're looking at the situation like "If they're not the absolute best, then they're worthless." Which is not the case AT ALL. If that were indeed what was happening, everyone would play the EXACT SAME THING. The same class, the same spec, the same everything. That's not the case at all. Certain classes and specs do better in certain areas of play than others, they have Strengths and Weaknesses and that is NOT a bad thing.

Good job ignoring the dudes point.

Your idealistic approach crashes and burns when colliding with human behaviour.

Why would you employ someone with better credentials on paper in favour of someone else?
Maybe that other person really focussed on his french baking skills and makes a killer Crossaint by now. He just didn't bother being optimal on paper because he likes to focus on other things. And, hey, maybe he even has everything you are looking for despite lacking the credentials, you wouldn't know?

What do you do? Are you gonna hire the guy who ticks every box of info available to you for that particular job, or are you gonna take your chances with Dave the Croissant guy, who thinks STEM is the part of an apple he accidentally swallows more often than he likes to admit?

I made this sound ridiculous on purpose to illuminate how dense it is to assume that people will make data-based decisions on grounds of empathy and trust.